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Leavy: State should reconfigure plantation

updated Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - 6:53pm

State should reconfigure plantation

As a new Athens resident, hailing from Georgia’s coast, I applaud the highlighting of a Brunswick News editorial in the Athens Banner-Herald’s Sept. 20 edition, headlined “South Georgia shortchanged on state parks.”

South Georgia, the area below the fall line stretching from Columbus to Macon, has fewer parks than the northern segment of the state. However, a plethora of state historic sites in southern Georgia could be reconfigured as state parks.

State Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Mark Williams has waged a gallant battle in allocating funds for the agency, which oversees about one million acres throughout the state. Yet questioning the number of parks and their locations merits an answer. My major concern is the state historic sites. Georgia lags behind South Carolina, Virginia, Florida and others in appreciation of the cultural richness of these treasures.

One lone lady, Ophelia Troup Dent, left Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation, the last rice plantation on the Georgia coast, to the state of Georgia. In terms of reconfiguring the plantation as a state park, various activities could be initiated on its extensive acreage: an equestrian trail, a duck pond, a nine-hole walking golf course, a trail bike area, and other possibilities. The Altamaha River adjoins the property, begging for canoeing and kayaking to be revitalized. The state also could help bring back the famous boat races of the plantation days as part of the Gullah-Geechee Corridor development.

Also, it would be good to renovate one or two of the slave cabins on the property. African-American visitors repeatedly ask to see where their ancestors may have lived. And, the plantation would be a great setting for events that were part of Dent’s life: dog shows, car shows, opera on the lawn, rice festivals, a wild hog cook-off, gospel singing and a harvest festival. Add a dairy display and a rice cultivation plot, and the state satisfies Dent’s original wishes.

For those who have visited Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation, for those living on the tidewater who speak with pride of their ties with the Dents, for the Friends of Hofwyl who have supported the site, and for those visitors who relish cultural and heritage tourism and will come, the state has quite a challenge for the 2014 session of the state legislature.

Sudy Vance Leavy

• Sudy Vance Leavy, in affiliation with Friends of Hofwyl, is the author of “Images of America: Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation.”